Fishermen like holidays because they keep other folks off the water. The way they celebrate traditional holidays like Thanksgiving, obscure holidays like Arbor Day, and as yet-to-be-declared holidays like National Cabin Fever Day depends on whether one fishes or not.

In WildLife: Volume Three: Fisherman’s Holidays, author Pat Neal examines our unrealistic expectations toward holidays through a collection of previously published newspaper columns. Written from his research as an historian and the wild and wooly life of a guide on the rivers of the Olympic Peninsula, these stories attempt to answer the eternal question: why can’t the Skunk Cabbage Festival last all year? Gleaned from the commentary page of The Peninsula Daily News, Neal offers a year’s worth of fisherman’s holiday stories.

WildLife provides humorous insight from a fisherman’s point of view into a host of holidays from Thanksgiving to the solstice to election day and more.